Gryphon Ink

Now that I've seen this review, I'm simply astounded that TLG released such a macabre set. And I do mean "astounded" as in, "good for you, TLG fellas!". Best of the Monster Hunters line by far, IMO. I know a lot of people have fallen in love with MH, but it just hasn't tickled me. This set is just amazing, though. I'm happy that for once, the set I've most fallen in love with is not one of the theme's most expensive sets (curse you, Harry Potter!). Multiverse, I really liked the way you did your review and enjoyed reading what you wrote. It's a very fresh aproach. Nice pictures, too.

Wow, I haven't seen a single LOTR set at either of the closest Wal-Marts, and other places have them on discount already?

I hear what you're saying about Weathertop, Darth Caedus, but I have to say I disagree. I think AoW is a great-looking set that just happens to be a bit overpriced. The minifig selection could have been better for that price, but the set is very recognizable as Weathertop, and the interior chamber is a great bonus for fans of the books. Very useful pieces and two fine-looking new Nazgul horses round it off as a set I definitely want, even more than Helm's Deep - which is great value but still too hefty a price tag for me.

Scorpion Pyramid?

Well, I was worried about the rumors of a price bump, but I have to say this looks like an epic set and a must-buy for me even at a higher price than the other WV sets. The house is beautiful, and the old-school snowplow truck is just awesome. Lots of really interesting parts use in building the sled and the plow. I don't find the minifigs too generic. I think they have just enough variety. I do wish TLG would stop using that green overall/red shirt body, and that one kid with the modern ski jacket and bike helmet looks kind of out of place in the Winter Village timeframe, but overall pretty good minifigs. And a cat! I love this cat!

Interesting, but really starts stretching when they get into the walk-on characters - Bail Organa's assistant, and Elf warriors who have three seconds of screen time? Who knew these guys even had names? All this proves is that both trilogies have lots and lots of minor characters. But overall, yes, there are strong parallels between them. Both trilogies offer great examples of the Hero's Journey monomyth that Joseph Campbell talks about. In the case of Star Wars, it's specifically because George Lucas used Campbell's work on the Hero's Journey as a template for the plot of A New Hope. There is also at least one scene in the LOTR films that is a Star Wars homage - Legolas killing the Mumakil is an intentional AT-AT reference.

Good review. What can I say about the set? I love this ship, it's a great model, and I like that they are making some EU ships, but the price - well, it's Star Wars pricing I guess. Tons of fans will buy two of them just to have Darth Malgus and yet another flavor of SW trooper and keep one set MISB, so TLG basically know they can charge whatever they want for it. I can already hear the Australian contingent screaming about it as they line up to pay $500 for a ship the size of a TIE. It's a shame, because it really is one of the coolest-looking SW ships in a long time.

My guess would be Thranduil's stronghold. They spend a significant amount of time in and around it, and the barrel escape is apparently the end of the first movie. This is where they can place a female minifig (Tauriel) and possibly Legolas, which makes it a good seller. Lots of play features, with trapdoors, booby-trapped front gates, prison cells and a river exit. If they add a spider or two, you've got multiple conflicts to play around with. It's also something a little different from most of the LOTR scenery, being a woodland fortress. I would not expect a Rivendell set. Rivendell is beautiful, but it just isn't playable. The only things that happen there are a lot of secret councils. If they do Rivendell at all, it will be as a D2C set like Diagon Alley, and I doubt that would happen for another year at least, when they know if LOTR is a big seller or not. (Also, I suspect it will have figs from the Fellowship, not from the Hobbit.)

Not the greatest series ever - even though it has lots of new parts, you can also see clearly that cranking out a series every few months is leading to a lot of unnecessary repeats. But there are several figures in here that I really, really want - man-bat is awesome, and that Alien Queen is a must, must, must-have. What an awesome present for AC fans! (And should be really easy to find her, too, since she's the only one with a skirt piece.)

Okay, I'm sure somebody will be along soon to tell us to keep the convo relevant to Lego and Kre-O, so I will only say that I completely agree with this. ENT totally failed to look like something that happened before TOS. And then it totally failed in many other ways, but that's a flamewar discussion for another day...

I just think you've got a reimagined, massive-Hollywood-budget, 21st Century version of a ship that was originally made for $3000 in 1965, using a Sixties sci-fi asthetic. Actually, imitating the TOS ship designs was a high priority for the designers of the Kelvin. They did not mean for it to look like an ENT ship, but like a TOS ship. And I personally thought they did a great job. It's just that our vision of the future has changed, you know? I will never understand why so many people have an abiding hatred for the new Trek movie. I'm a Trekkie almost from birth, having been raised watching TOS on our black-and-white TV, and I did not find the new movie disrespectful at all. It was different, and modernized, and although it definitely wasn't as cerebral as TOS and TNG were, it wasn't stupid either. But so many people seem to think someone took a dump on their childhood just by making the movie at all. I don't get it.

Um, you know that Star Trek 2009 outgrossed all the other Trek movies, and that there is a sequel coming out in 2013, right?

I have to agree with both statements. The wargs in TTT are silly. And I don't even care if there is going to be a "continuity error" because of the change, at least in the Hobbit they will look like proper wolves.

I disagree. I did have a lot of nerd hate for the new Enterprise when I saw the first stills from the movie, but it really grew on me. Now I like it just as much as I like the classic design. (Although I don't think I'm ever going to like the "iBridge" very much...) Can we agree that the Kreo set is just horrible?

Beautiful work, Elander. I love the cracks in the pillars and the ceiling. You had some epic ideas for LOTR sets, and it's good to see your own creations are just as epic. The official Moria set is nowhere near as cool as this.

I've seen that, but that doesn't really tell us how TLG will do them. And the dwarves' headgear changes throughout the movies, too. There is at least one picture out there that shows dwarves wearing the hoods they all have in the book. And I'm sure they will have helmets on at some point. Hoods and helmets won't work with those one-piece hair/beards.

I would go with Andrea's Bunny House if it's out already (I haven't seen it anywhere yet). It looks more interesting than the Doghouse. My four-year-old quite likes the Friends sets if someone else will play with her. Olivia's Treehouse is another option - it has a cute bird and a cat and is a nice display set. Kids can always find something to do in a treehouse, even a Lego one.

The minifigs are nice, but I do hope a few more of the dwarves will have "normal" beards and hair, instead of the crazy molds we see here on Bombur and Bofur. A little variety in dwarven facial hair is always nice, but I can't see using those pieces in too many different scenarios. They've done a great job making the dwarves into distinct characters, though. Can't wait for more pics, especially if this really is the Bag End set!

Holy Carp, that Enterprise looks awful. How do you turn one of the most graceful ship designs in the history of science fiction into such an ugly mess? In a way, I'm glad, because now I don't have to worry about betraying Lego. There's no way I'm putting money down for that hideous thing.

Pythor, let me add my voice to the chorus of Earth Defense supporters. It looks great on the shelf, is fun to play with, and will soon get much harder to find and more expensive. Shelob is definitely a great set, but not in the same category. EDHQ will be one of those legendary sets that people kill innocent Lego collectors for in twenty years' time. Vittorio, I would get the bakery. I have the Post Office and wish I'd bought the bakery instead, simply because the PO will be around for a lot longer if you eventually do want the entire collection. Plus the bakery is cheaper and an equally nice model.

Okay, maybe not enough pieces for the money, maybe out of most people's price range, not an iconic Star Wars ship, and all that. It's true enough, and the set is definitely out of MY price range. But... Holy Hell, that is one frackin' beautiful model. I can't stop staring at the engine greebling and the textures and the detailing of the gun and the cockpit build and and and... UCS Star Destroyers and Super Star Destroyers never really blew me away - I think the scale on a model of such a vast ship makes it so the detailing doesn't really hold up to scrutiny. But the B-Wing is the perfect scale for rendering some beautiful curves and intricate structures. IT IS AWESOME.

And witches and airships and Gyptian barges and harpies and battles with angelic hosts? Yep, that would be pretty awesome. I would love a Dark Materials theme! Oh. Yeah. Sniff.

Apples and oranges. I think both themes will be successful, but they have different goals. Being a non-licensed theme, TLG can drop Friends at any time, relaunch it, revamp it, or declare it dead and launch a similar theme building on its success a la Castle. It could (in theory at least) last as long as Technic or Pirates as long as it keeps on hitting a fairly low sales goal, because from TLG's point of view the key thing is keeping a presence in the Pink Aisle. With that in mind, I suspect they will want to keep the theme going even if the sales figures are barely breaking even. LOTR has a very different objective. It's to cash in on one of the hottest franchises around during the next couple of years by catering to AFOLs with beloved character designs and battle scenes. Realistically, the demand for LOTR toys will start to diminish as soon as the second Hobbit movie comes out on DVD. Sorry, I'm as big a Tolkien fan as anybody and have been since I was about five years old, but that's how it is. The thing that's driving LOTR merchandising right now is not the books that were published sixty years ago, but the movies - specifically, the fact that there are Hobbit movies coming out soon. Once those movies have finished their first run, the worldwide Tolkien frenzy will start to fade away again. How long did Lego Harry Potter last after the eighth HP movie? My pie-in-the-sky prediction is that LOTR will run from 2012-14, something like six waves, and it will sell incredible numbers during that time. But right after the first wave of DVD sales ends for Hobbit Pt. 2, the sales will drop to the point where it's no longer profitable for TLG to keep the license. There will be other, hotter franchises out there for them to pick up.

While I don't have any insider information on costs vs. profits at TLG, I think you're overestimating the cost of producing variant printing. This is one of the largest toy manufacturers in the world. They produce these sets like Saruman produces Uruks, ten thousand Olivias and Andreas in a night. I think they can afford to make a version of Andrea that doesn't have leg printing. If anything it would be cheaper than the version with printing. It's one step less, not more. It may seem like I'm quibbling over a minor detail, but the thing is, Friends is supposed to be TLG's big effort to compete with Polly Pocket, Strawberry Shortcake and their ilk for a share of girls' allowances. And while I think the theme has been successful overall, TLG's reluctance to produce variant minidolls makes this set one of the weakest in the theme. If you look at Polly Pocket in particular, you'll see that every set has two or three changes of outfits, from shoes to handbags, and the various sets cover everything from winter sports to snorkeling. Now TLG is saying, listen girls, Lego is better because you can build whatever setting you like for the minidolls. Look, in this set you have Andrea playing on the beach and snorkeling. Oh, and she's snorkeling with purple ankle-strap shoes on. You can't change that part - just use your imagination, okay? I think we all tend to think these little details don't matter much, but when you're trying to capture kids' hearts, minds, and wallets, the details are EVERYTHING. Kids can be incredible sticklers for details, and to a lot of kids it might be totally fine to have polar bears and penguins in one Arctic set - but your Arctic explorer better be wearing appropriate clothing, or the Arctic adventure is a total non-starter. I've seen this kind of thing happen in a lot of kids' games. Of course, you could also say it's just a polybag, and who's to say you wouldn't be right? It still annoys me, though.

That movie never happened. Not one single thing in it was true to the source. Awful, awful, awful. But yes, a nice MOC, JackJonespaw.